Monitoring physical parameters in an emulation environment

ABSTRACT

A method and system is disclosed for monitoring and viewing physical parameters while the emulator is emulating a design. Additionally, the parameters are in real time or substantially real time, such as after a periodic update. In one embodiment, a monitoring portion of the emulator periodically monitors the emulator boards and power supplies for physical information. The physical information is communicated to a workstation for communication to a user. For example, the workstation can display the physical information in a graphical user interface (GUI) that shows which boards are plugged in the system and which slots are empty. In yet another aspect, the user can select a particular board in the system and view communication information, such as data errors, status, link errors, global errors, etc.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/517,227, filed Sep. 5, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,567,894, which application is a continuation of International Patent Application No. PCT/EP2006/060335, filed on Feb. 28, 2006, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to hardware emulators, and more particularly to monitoring physical parameters in a hardware emulator.

BACKGROUND

Today's sophisticated SoC (System on Chip) designs are rapidly evolving and nearly doubling in size with each generation. Indeed, complex designs have nearly exceeded 50 million gates. This complexity, combined with the use of devices in industrial and mission-critical products, has made complete design verification an essential element in the semiconductor development cycle. Ultimately, this means that every chip designer, system integrator, and application software developer must focus on design verification.

Hardware emulation provides an effective way to increase verification productivity, speed up time-to-market, and deliver greater confidence in the final SoC product. Even though individual intellectual property blocks may be exhaustively verified, previously undetected problems appear when the blocks are integrated within the system. Comprehensive system-level verification, as provided by hardware emulation, tests overall system functionality, IP subsystem integrity, specification errors, block-to-block interfaces, boundary cases, and asynchronous clock domain crossings. Although design reuse, intellectual property, and high-performance tools all help by shortening SoC design time, they do not diminish the system verification bottleneck, which consumes 60-70% of the design cycle. As a result, designers can implement a number of system verification strategies in a complementary methodology including software simulation, simulation acceleration, hardware emulation, and rapid prototyping. But, for system-level verification, hardware emulation remains a favorable choice due to superior performance, visibility, flexibility, and accuracy.

A short history of hardware emulation is useful for understanding the emulation environment. Initially, software programs would read a circuit design file and simulate the electrical performance of the circuit very slowly. To speed up the process, special computers were designed to run simulators as fast as possible. IBM's Yorktown “simulator” was the earliest (1982) successful example of this—it used multiple processors running in parallel to run the simulation. Each processor was programmed to mimic a logical operation of the circuit for each cycle and may be reprogrammed in subsequent cycles to mimic a different logical operation. This hardware ‘simulator’ was faster than the current software simulators, but far slower than the end-product ICs. When Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) became available in the mid-80's, circuit designers conceived of networking hundreds of FPGAs together in order to map their circuit design onto the FPGAs and the entire FPGA network would mimic, or emulate, the entire circuit. In the early 90's the term “emulation” was used to distinguish reprogrammable hardware that took the form of the design under test (DUT) versus a general purpose computer (or work station) running a software simulation program.

Soon, variations appeared. Custom FPGAs were designed for hardware emulation that included on-chip memory (for DUT memory as well as for debugging), special routing for outputting internal signals, and for efficient networking between logic elements. Another variation used custom IC chips with networked single bit processors (so-called processor based emulation) that processed in parallel and usually assumed a different logic function every cycle.

Physically, a hardware emulator resembles a large server. Racks of large printed circuit boards are connected by backplanes in ways that most facilitate a particular network configuration. A workstation connects to the hardware emulator for control, input, and output.

Before the emulator can emulate a DUT, the DUT design must be compiled. That is, the DUT's logic must be converted (synthesized) into code that can program the hardware emulator's logic elements (whether they be processors or FPGAs). Also, the DUT's interconnections must be synthesized into a suitable network that can be programmed into the hardware emulator. The compilation is highly emulator specific and can be time consuming.

There are many different physical parameters associated with an emulator environment, such as which board types are plugged into the emulator and where they are plugged in, what are the temperatures on the boards, what are the board failure rates, etc. Prior to compiling a design and trying to run it in an emulator, such physical parameters are helpful to have an understanding if the emulator can accept and emulate the design. Yet, there is not a known way to view such physical parameters in an effective manner. Particularly, there is not known a way to view such physical parameters in real time in a graphical user interface while the emulator is emulating a design.

Thus, it is desirable to provide an emulator environment with the ability to view physical parameters associated with the emulator.

SUMMARY

The present invention provides a method and system for monitoring and viewing physical parameters while the emulator is emulating a design. Additionally, the parameters are in real time or substantially real time, such as after a periodic update.

In one embodiment, a monitoring portion of the emulator periodically monitors the emulator boards and power supplies for physical information. The physical information is communicated to a workstation for communication to a user. For example, the workstation can display the physical information in a graphical user interface (GUI) that shows which boards are plugged in the system and which slots are empty.

In yet another aspect, the user can select a particular board in the system using the GUI and view communication information, such as data errors, status, link errors, global errors, etc.

In a further aspect, power supply information can be viewed, such as current and voltage levels, air temperature, fan speed, board temperatures at particular points, etc.

In another aspect, the IC layout on a board can be viewed with a graphical presentation of which ICs are malfunctioning. Even further, the sections within a particular IC can be viewed with a graphical presentation of sections within the IC that are malfunctioning.

These features and others of the described embodiments will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a system diagram of a hardware emulator environment according to the invention.

FIG. 2 is a more detailed system diagram showing multiple host computers coupled to the emulator through an intermediate platform maintenance board.

FIG. 3 is a high-level system diagram showing various servers connected through a messaging bus.

FIG. 4 is a three-dimensional physical view of a system of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 5A-5C show a GUI with different physical views of the actual system of FIG. 4.

FIGS. 6A and 6B show the GUI displaying error rates of various boards in the system.

FIGS. 7A-7D show power and temperature information associated with the system using a GUI.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show a logical representation of an internal portion of an IC and a physical view of a printed circuit board using the GUI.

FIGS. 9A and 9B show particular registers of the system accessed through the GUI.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of a method for monitoring and displaying physical parameters in the system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows an emulator environment 10 including a hardware emulator 12 coupled to one or more hardware emulator hosts 14. The emulator host 14 may be any desired type of computer hardware and generally includes a user interface through which a user can load, compile and download a design to the emulator 12. Additionally, the user can visualize physical parameters associated with the emulator through a graphical user interface (GUI) on any of the emulator hosts 14, as further described below.

The emulator 12 includes a monitoring portion 16 and an emulation portion 18. The emulation portion 18 includes multiple printed circuit boards 20 coupled to a midplane 22. The midplane 22 allows physical connection of the printed circuit boards into the emulator 12 on both sides of the midplane. A backplane may also be used in place of the midplane, the backplane allowing connection of printed circuit boards on one side of the backplane. Any desired type of printed circuit boards may be used. For example, programmable boards 24 generally include an array of FPGAs, VLSIs or ICs, or other programmable circuitry, that may be programmed with the user's design downloaded from the emulator host 14. One or more I/O boards interface 26 allow communication between the emulator 12 and hardware external to the emulator. For example, the user may have a preexisting processor board that is used in conjunction with the emulator and such a processor board connects to the emulator through I/O board interface 26. Clock board 28 generates any number of desired clock signals. And interconnect boards 30 allow integrated circuits on the programmable boards 24 to communicate together and with integrated circuits on the I/O board interface 26.

FIG. 2 shows a more detailed view of the system. The multiple host computers 14 are coupled together through a network 40, such as a LAN, but other networks can also be used. The host computers 14 are equipped with a high-speed-link PCI board coupled to a platform maintenance board (PMB) 42, which acts as the monitoring portion 16. The PMB 42 monitors various physical parameters in the emulator portion 18 as well as creates the interface between the emulator portion 18 and the host computers 14. The PMB 42 on a periodic basis (e.g., 10 seconds) transmits communication and monitoring reports to the host workstations 14 for display in the GUI. Similarly, the PMB 42 may receive information regarding the physical parameters of the emulator portion 18 periodically. For example, hardware (e.g., an FPGA) on each printed circuit board 20 has intelligence for monitoring physical parameters on its respective board and for sending this physical information to the PMB (e.g., every 5 seconds). Other changes, such as a detected error, are transmitted immediately upon and in response to the detection. Thus, the PMB 42 may instantaneously (as opposed to periodically) detect any changes in the emulation environment 10 and generate real-time state change messages to the host stations 14. All of the physical parameters obtained through the PMB may be obtained while the emulator portion 18 is performing emulation. Thus, several emulations may be separately running and the physical parameters of the emulator may separately be viewed on the GUI of the host computers. However, there need not be a link between the number of simultaneous emulations and the number of workstations. For example, many emulations can be simultaneously run through one workstation. The printed circuit boards 20 are grouped in a one-to-one correspondence with the number of host computers. This grouping allows one host computer to be associated with a group of boards 20 so that multiple high-speed links can be used in parallel. Obviously, the grouping used is a design choice and may easily be modified based on the design or not used at all. IO boxes 46 allow connection of other user boards to the system. The IO boxes 46 are also coupled to the PMB 42 and monitored thereby.

FIG. 3 shows a view of the emulator system including various servers 60 that communicate through a messaging bus 62. Emulator servers 64 are in charge of managing one physical host connection to the emulator and provide a way to transfer data between the emulator messaging bus 62 and the emulator 12. The maintenance server 66 is in charge of diagnostics, and storing maintenance information collected from other applications, servers, and/or emulator boards. The maintenance server also interacts with the GUI to display the information to the user. The resource server 68 is in charge of managing the different emulator resources provided to the applications.

FIG. 4 shows a physical three-dimensional view of the emulator portion 18 including the midplane 22 having horizontal boards 80 coupled to one side of the midplane, and vertical boards 82 coupled to the opposite side of the midplane. The physical integrated circuits are shown at 84. The IO boxes 46 sit separately and are not generally considered part of the emulator.

FIG. 5A shows a window 100 of the GUI displayed on any of the computers 14 or accessible from the computers 14. The window 100 has an emulation information panel 102 and a physical system view panel 104. The emulation information panel 102 provides a summary of the number of boards in the system that are operational and provides the board types. For example, the panel 102 lists that nine AVB boards are operational and one CXB board is available. AVB is a board type that includes programmable FPGAs, VLSI, or ICs used for programming the user's design (see FIG. 1 at 24) whereas the CXB board is a board that generates the system clocks (see FIG. 1 at 28). Other boards are also listed, such as the SXB boards (switching matrices) (see FIG. 1 at 30), the SIOB boards (I/O board interface) (see FIG. 1 at 26) and the IO boxes 46. In panel 104, three tabs 106 provide different physical views of the system, including a top view, side view and IO view. The top view tab is selected in FIG. 5A and shows a physical view of the boards of FIG. 4. Only the top-most board of the horizontal boards 80 can be seen, while all of the vertical boards 82 are shown. The midplane 22 is shown having numbers 0-15 representing each available AVB slot for the vertical boards 82, plus 0-1 representing SIOB slots for the vertical boards 82. The darkened slots represents the boards physically positioned in the slots, while the white boxes, shown at 108, represent empty slots. The physically present boards may also be shown in different colors (not shown) to represent whether the board is correctly operating or has a malfunction.

FIG. 5B shows the same window 100 with the side view tab 106 selected. In this view, the physical boards of the system shown in FIG. 4 are seen from the side view. In this case, only one vertical board 82 in slot 0 is visible, while the horizontal boards 80 are displayed including indicia 110 to indicate the board type.

Thus, from FIGS. 5A and 5B, the physical view of the system is shown including board types, their slot positions within the system, and whether or not they are properly functioning. Additionally, both views provide a status line 112 that provides real time physical parameters associated with the system, such as the emulator name (shown as an alpha-numeric string), whether that emulator is operational, the voltage, power, temperature, and the last change in the physical environment that occurred.

FIG. 5C shows the same window 100 with the IO view tab 106 selected. This view shows two IO boxes 114 and 116. IO box 114 is currently shown as operational with six boards plugged in, while IO box 116 is shown having empty slots.

FIGS. 6A and 6B show different views related to communication information in a window view 130. Tabs 132 allow the user to select the board type within the system. For example, in FIG. 6A, the tab PMB is selected and panel 134 shows different communication errors associated with the PMB 42. For example, catastrophic errors, link errors, data errors, packets marked bad errors and global errors. Thus, the physical error information is available for any board.

FIG. 6B shows the window view 130 with the AVB tab 132 selected. In this view, a drop down window 136 is provided to allow the user to select which AVB board to view. Thus, for any desired AVB, the user can view real time or substantially real time error information. Tabs 132 also include views of other system boards, such as SIOB and the IO Boxes.

FIGS. 7A through 7D show a window 150 related to monitored data within the system. Thus, other physical parameters associated with the system may be viewed in the GUI in real time. In FIG. 7A, window 150 has tabs 152 including a power status system tab, a consumption tab, a board temperature tab and an IO Box temperature tab. FIG. 7A shows the power status system tab selected and shows information windows 154 that indicate whether the main power is on or off, and the status of various power modules. Different status information shows that module is OK, missing, faulty, partially faulty, etc.

FIG. 7B shows the consumption tab 152 selected resulting in four panels 156, 158, 160, and 162 being displayed. Panel 156 shows the current voltage consumption and the minimum and maximum voltage consumption. Panel 158 shows the current being consumed and the minimum and maximum current levels used. Panel 160 shows the current air temperature within the emulator as well as the minimum and maximum air temperatures. Panel 162 shows the fans being used in the system and their current percentage of operational capacity. Thus, 80% means the fan can increase another 20% to be at maximum capacity, but increasing fan speed can increase noise and vibration within the system.

FIG. 7C shows window 150 with the board temperature tab 152 selected. In this window view, five panels are displayed 170, 172, 174, 176 and 178, each representing a different board type in the system. In panel 170, a drop down window 180 allows the user to select the particular AVB in the system. Currently, AVB number 3 is shown. Information windows 182 show the various temperatures of preselected points on the board. In this example, each AVB has a preselected hot point and a preselected cold point in which a temperature sensor is positioned. The information windows 182 show the current temperature at each of the hot and cold points as well as the minimum and maximum temperatures at each point. Each of the other panels, 172, 174, 176 and 178 have similar functionality for the SIOB, SXB, CXB, and PMB, respectively.

FIG. 7D shows window 150 with the IO Box temperature points tab 152 selected. In this case, two panes 184 and 186 are shown, each for its respective IO Box. In pane 184, drop down window 188 allows selection of different UB-type boards in the IO Box, while drop down window 190 allows different TIB-type boards to be selected. Once the desired boards are selected the current hot and cold point temperatures as well as the minimum and maximum temperatures are provided. Similar operation can be performed in pane 186.

FIG. 8A shows further physical information associated with the boards within the emulator environment 10. In particular, FIG. 8A shows a fault editor window 200 that allows the user to visualize a cluster or memory within an IC to determine which areas of the IC have faults. Tabs 202 allow the user to select the board type, and drop-down window 204 allows the user to select the particular board within the system. Drop-down window 206 allows the user to select the particular IC on the board to view whether the clusters and memory areas of the IC are functioning properly. Areas that are not functioning properly are indicated with a different color (not shown), such as red to indicate a problem area and green to indicate proper functionality.

FIG. 8B shows a window 220 with a physical view of a board in the system. The board view shows various ICs such as at 222. ICs that are not functioning properly are shown in a different color (not shown). In this way, a user can view physical parameters, such as the functionality of an IC, using the GUI and take corrective action if necessary.

FIG. 9A includes a resource access window 230 that allows a user to access a particular register on a board in the system and modify the contents of that register using the GUI. For example, window 232 shows a particular register for the chosen board, chip, and block type. FIG. 9B shows a similar window 234 allowing the user to read and modify memory.

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart 250 of a method for displaying physical parameters within a GUI. In process block 252, a design is currently being emulated in the emulator. In process block 254, during the emulation, the monitoring portion of the emulator receives physical parameters associated with the emulation portion of the emulator, such as all of the parameters discussed in the previous Figures. In process block 256, the physical parameters are displayed in the GUI. Several host computers may be performing emulation within the same emulator environment and simultaneously be able to view the physical parameters associated with the emulator through interconnection with the PMB.

Having illustrated and described the principles of the illustrated embodiments, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the embodiments can be modified in arrangement and detail without departing from such principles.

It should be recognized that the GUI application can run out of any workstation not just the host workstation.

In view of the many possible embodiments, it will be recognized that the illustrated embodiments include only examples of the invention and should not be taken as a limitation on the scope of the invention. Rather, the invention is defined by the following claims. We therefore claim as the invention all such embodiments that come within the scope of these claims. 

1. A method of monitoring physical parameters associated with an emulation environment used to emulate an Integrated Circuit design, comprising: emulating the Integrated Circuit design in an emulator, the emulator including multiple printed circuit boards having programmable circuitry thereon for programming hardware functionality of the Integrated circuit design; concurrently during the emulation, receiving physical parameters associated with the emulator in substantially real time or in real time, wherein the physical parameters include one or more of the following: minimum and maximum current information, voltage information, temperature information, an indication of which printed circuit boards are not functioning properly, information relating to which fans are operational, an identification of which slots, within the emulator, the printed circuit boards are located and which slots are vacant; and displaying the physical parameters associated with the emulator in a graphical user interface.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving physical parameters includes at least receiving location information, including slot information, of printed circuit boards within the emulator.
 3. The method of claim 2, further including providing an indication which printed circuit boards are functioning properly and which printed circuit boards are not functioning properly.
 4. The method of claim 2, further including selecting a printed circuit board within the emulator, requesting error information associated with the selected printed circuit board and displaying the error information in the graphical user interface.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the physical parameters include at least power supply information including voltage and current levels.
 6. The method of claim 1, further including selecting a printed circuit board within the emulator, displaying a view of the printed circuit board including location and functionality of Integrated Circuits thereon.
 7. The method of claim 1, further including receiving at least the temperature information from a temperature sensor positioned within the emulator and wherein displaying the physical parameters includes displaying the temperature information.
 8. The method of 7, wherein the temperature information includes a plurality of temperature points on a printed circuit board within the emulator.
 9. The method of claim 1, further including coupling at least first and second workstations to a single emulator environment, emulating a first design from the first workstation, emulating a second design from the second workstation, and obtaining the physical parameters of the emulator environment during both emulations.
 10. An emulation environment, comprising: a plurality of workstations, the workstations being computers; a hardware emulator coupled to the plurality of workstations to emulate two or more different designs simultaneously provided from one or more different workstations; and a graphical user interface displayable on at least one of the workstations, the graphical user interface displaying physical parameters received in substantially real time or in real time while the hardware emulator is emulating the designs, wherein the physical parameters include one or more of the following: minimum and maximum current information, voltage information, temperature information, an indication of which printed circuit boards are not functioning properly, information relating to which fans are operational, an identification of which slots, within the emulator, the printed circuit boards are located and which slots are vacant.
 11. The emulation environment of claim 10, wherein the hardware emulator includes an emulation portion and a monitoring portion, the monitoring portion including a platform maintenance board for obtaining the physical parameters from the emulation portion.
 12. The emulation environment of claim 10, wherein the physical parameters include information regarding the location and type of printed circuit boards within the hardware emulator.
 13. The emulation environment of claim 12, wherein the physical parameters include at least which printed circuit boards within the emulator are properly functioning and which are not and an indication of which chips on the printed circuit boards are not functioning.
 14. The emulation environment of claim 10, wherein the physical parameters include at least substantially real-time voltage and current levels of the emulator power supply.
 15. The emulation environment of claim 10, further including an emulator messaging bus coupled to the graphical user interface through which the physical parameters are received.
 16. The emulation environment of claim 10, wherein the physical parameters include temperature information within the emulator obtained from multiple temperature sensors positioned within the emulator.
 17. The emulation environment of claim 10, wherein the physical parameters include an indication of which ICs on a selected printed circuit board and not properly functioning.
 18. An emulation environment, comprising: means for emulating multiple different designs simultaneously in an emulator, each design associated with a different workstation, the means for emulating including multiple printed circuit boards coupled together through a midplane or backplane; means for receiving in substantially real time or in real time, physical parameters associated with the means for emulating; and means for displaying the physical parameters in substantially real time or in real time, wherein the physical parameters include one or more of the following: minimum and maximum current information, voltage information, temperature information, an indication of which printed circuit boards are not functioning properly, information relating to which fans are operational, an identification of which slots, within the emulator, the printed circuit boards are located and which slots are vacant emulator.
 19. The emulation environment of claim 18, wherein the physical parameters include one or more of the following: current information, voltage information, temperature information, PC board functionality, and PC board position. 